The New York Public Library has been doing some cool things this summer, and not just for kids. There was the Big Summer Book Club, which just met yesterday at the Delacorte Theater (where they have Shakespeare in the Park, IYKYK) to discuss the very NYC-centric The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin. I love the idea of a huge book club meeting in a park, and I hope to see more of it.
Now, since we are in the midst of back-to-school season and fall is right around the corner, I thought it was the perfect time to plan to read some of the most recent dark academia. Just last month, I mentioned the queer, 1920s mystery Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran in a list of great lit fic to read with your club, and this week, I’ve got 1950s witches (courtesy of Alice Hoffman), deadly tarot, and more. There’s lots of romantasy, a little drug dealing, and the final book in a bestselling trilogy as a bonus.
The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman
Hoffman knows a thing or two when it comes to writing about witches, and her latest witchy work involves a secret society. It’s the 1950s in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when two young women who are polar opposites—super bright Ava and wild and rich Lauren—meet each other at Radcliffe College. Soon, both women are recruited by the Lilith Society, a secret society of witches that dates back hundreds of years. Their power and friendship grow within the safety of Radcliffe, but then girls from their society start to go missing. —Erica Ezeifedi
Heir of Prophecy by Analeigh Sbrana
The author of Lore of the Wilds and Lore of the Tides takes us to a new fae world where the Heir, the subject of a prophecy connected to the Prince of the Underworld, has been conscripted into a magical war college. She has to hide her magic from the Fae who keep her captive, so they don’t know who she is, but nothing can protect her from the visions she gets in dreams and awake, promises from a dark power who can only be one man (if you can call him that). Like Lore, this is the first in a duology, so be prepared to wait incredibly impatiently for the story to wrap up sometime in the future. —Jessica Pryde
A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez
This romantasy debut has everything from deadly tarot to enemies-to-lovers to dangerous allegiances. We have Rune, who has lost everything because of the Immortals. This year, she’s determined to get her get back, so she makes certain she’s chosen to participate in the trek to the Immortal realm humans must make every year. But now she’s got to survive the Forge, the dastardly college for the Immortal druids’ tricky tarot magic. Thing is, our girl Rune has a rare form of magic that makes her both a precious commodity and a target to take out. The only other person with her kind of magic is Prince Draven, who she goes to live with. But the Prince isn’t trustworthy. And his tutelage comes at a cost… —Erica Ezeifedi
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An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole
This is an exciting novel about an elite university hiding terrible secrets. Ellory Morgan has worked hard to attend Warren University, but once there, she hears rumors about the occult and the use of forbidden magic, and that its success has come at the cost of its BIPOC students. —Liberty Hardy
Bodies of Magic by Freya Marske
Marske has been making a name for herself with spicy queer fantasies for a while now, but Bodies of Magic shows a different side to Marske. This dark academia book takes a medical school turn. In this world, if you’re a mage with the power to heal, you cannot just march onto a battlefield or into a hospital and start casting. No, you have to go to school and pass the Grand Exam. Five young scholars are thrown together, each with a secret, and all trying to pass the Grand Exam or die trying. —Chris M. Arnone
200 Monas by Jan Saenz
Arvy Keening is this close to finishing up undergrad. After finals, she’s all set to move to San Francisco and start a fancy Big Pharma internship—but she’s have to become the neighborhood pharacist first, if you know what I mean. After she finds 200 hits of what she thinks is Molly in her deceased mother’s closet, and two drug dealers come by to get what they’re due, Arvy finds out the drug is not what she first thought it was. It’s Mona, a rare drug that gives intense orgasms. To stay alive and sell the drugs in time, she gets the help of local drug dealer Wolf, who is exceedingly charming. All manner of sexy, erotic times are had as the two make sling Mona all up and through the college town. —Erica Ezeifedi
Dreamweaving by O.O. Sangoyomi
Deja Freeman comes from a long line of witches, but after her mother’s death, Deja’s aunt has attempted to keep her from all things magic. When Deja enrolls at the prestigious Tanglewood Preparatory School, she finds herself wrapped up in dangerous magic. Tanglewood’s best student, Tobi, is plagued by strange dreams that are connected to the disappearance of another student. Together, Deja and Tobi and their friends must decode the dreams and the school’s dark past. —Courtney Rodgers
Bonus
Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo
This one comes with a bit of a note. It’s the third and final book in the Ninth House Trilogy, one of my favorite dark academia series ever. Because it does require reading the first two books, and book clubs don’t typically read entire trilogies, I’ve decided to include it as a bonus since it is out this fall. Also, because of spoilery reasons, I will only share details of the first book, Ninth House, where we meet Alex Stern, who is the only survivor of an unsolved multiple homicide, and who gets a sort of second chance at life once she’s offered a full-ride scholarship to an Ivy League college. She doesn’t really know why she, of all people, has been awarded this opportunity, but once she arrives in New Haven, she’s assigned to keep an eye on Yale’s secret societies, which have way more nefarious goings-on than she could have imagined. —Erica Ezeifedi
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